Some rice traders in Lagos have lamented the inability of local rice farmers to meet the growing demand of the produce.
The traders spoke in separate interviews with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Wednesday, in Lagos.
The Nigerian Government recently reaffirmed its commitment to increasing local production of wheat, rice, maize, sorghum and soyabean, through the provision of relevant farm inputs.
John Nwabueze, a food stuff trader at Alimosho local government area of Lagos, lamented the growing cost of the produce and the inability of locally grown rice to meet rising demands.
He, however, noted that the quality of locally grown rice had improved and could stand at par with foreign rice.
“If the closure of the border is completely enforced, Nigerians will have no choice but to stick to locally grown rice.
“When there is scarcity of the smuggled rice, then we will wholly embrace our home grown rice.
“Local rice farmers may not initially be able to meet the growing demands of rice if the borders are watertight but gradually they will meet up” Nwabueze said.
He said that the reason why most Nigerians patronised foreign rice was the poor awareness of the benefits of local rice.
Nwabueze added: “We have very good local rice brands without stones and well-polished but Nigerians are used to foreign rice.
“When we started eating Nigerian rice when the border was initially closed, we had a lot of poorly processed rice in the market.
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“But now the situation has changed; however, most customers insist that they will rather buy expensive rice than buy local rice.
“We want the government to either completely enforce the closure of the borders and put an end to smuggled rice or officially open the borders for legal rice imports”.
On his part, Temitayo Abdulhakeem, another rice trader, said though Nigerian rice was picking up in quality, it was insufficient to meet growing local demands.
“If the borders are completely shut and no infiltration of rice into the country, local farmers may not be able to meet the demands.
“If we cannot even get smuggled rice, it will be more difficult for Nigerians.
Abdulhakeem said: “When the borders were initially shut down, and we had no access to foreign rice, we witnessed a daily rise in the price of rice.
“How many Nigerian rice brands do we have? We have only five brands that are of good quality.
“We actually seek the opening of the borders for legal importation of rice but that does not mean the price will drop drastically.
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